Trinity Nuclear Test Research Articles

Controversy and Interpretation of Quotes from the Bhagavad Gita Surrounding the Movie Oppenheimer

The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita during the Trinity nuclear test by Oppenheimer, the main character of the movie Oppenheimer, released in 2023. The phrase he quotes is “Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds”. The phrase from Gita quoted by Oppenheimer in the film, along with the image of the provocative flash of a nuclear bomb and a mushroom cloud, contribute greatly to the visualization of the apocalypse of the end of the world. Quotes from Gita that we encountered through Oppenheimer’s documentaries, interviews, and autobiography are reproduced through movies, and children are learning these sentences at school. This article analyzes the phrases in Oppenheimer’s Gita and the possibility of mistranslation, and interprets various criticisms from mythologists, religious scholars, and philosophers surrounding the quote from various angles. This study analyzes cultural debates about symbolic and suggestive Hindu short verses and presents the theoretical basis for the true meaning and issues in religious philosophy. Through Oppenheimer’s film, the Gita has once again become a symbolic scripture representing Hinduism, and the passages he said are being reproduced as quotations representing the Gita. At this point, we discussed the issues of debate and criticism by modern scholars surrounding the passages.

Has Health Physics Contributed to an 80-y False Narrative about the Trinity Nuclear Test?

This paper discusses the various analyses of the Trinity Nuclear Test, including how they might apply to the issue of infant mortality. This paper was first drafted as a response to a letter by Rice, who commented on my earlier letter on that issue. My earlier letter commented on the National Cancer Institute's 2020 series of papers in the October Issue of Health Physics on the impact of the Trinity Nuclear Test that was conducted on unoccupied government lands on 16 July 1945. The Journal editors requested that my response to Rice be edited and submitted as a paper to ensure adequate technical review and suggested that the article also add material summarizing the series of exchanges that were published in the Journal. This article suggests that significant differences exist between various summaries of the offsite impact of the Trinity Nuclear Test and offers that Trinity might be the largest nuclear accident in terms of the impact on uninvolved civilians who were downwind following the test. It suggests areas for further study to resolve these significant differences. It also asserts that until the estimated exposures of downwind residents are resolved and an appropriate study is made of infant deaths following the Trinity Nuclear Test, the issue of infant mortality remains an unanswered, 80-y-old question.

Measurements of 135Cs/137Cs in debris from the Trinity nuclear test

Measurements of 135Cs/137Cs in debris from the Trinity nuclear test

A New Yield Assessment for the Trinity Nuclear Test, 75 Years Later

New measurement and assessment techniques have been applied to the radiochemical reevaluation of the Trinity Event. Thirteen trinitite samples were dissolved and analyzed using a combination of traditional decay counting methods and the mass spectrometry techniques. The resulting data were assessed using advanced simulation tools to afford a final yield determination of 24.8 ± 2 kt TNT equivalent, substantially higher than the previous U.S. Department of Energy released value of 21 kt.

Estimated Radiation Doses and Projected Cancer Risks for New Mexico Residents from Exposure to Radioactive Fallout from the Trinity Nuclear Test

The first dose reconstruction and cancer risk projection for the population of New Mexico as a consequence of exposure to radioactive fallout from the Trinity nuclear test was published in 2020. This comprehensive evaluation was conducted by investigators from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) with collaborators over a 7-year time period. This technical note primarily summarizes the already published design considerations of that study, the methods of data collection, study limitations, and findings, though it also summarizes important events that took place over several decades that led to the NCI Trinity study. In addition, we discuss two related investigations that were part of the NCI Trinity study: the possibility of intergenerational (genetic) effects among those exposed and an analysis of the whereabouts, quantity, and health implications of the unfissioned plutonium from Trinity. Finally, we provide doses received by the military and civilian participants in the Trinity test as reported by other organizations.

Projected Cancer Risks to Residents of New Mexico from Exposure to Trinity Radioactive Fallout.

The Trinity nuclear test, conducted in 1945, exposed residents of New Mexico to varying degrees of radioactive fallout. Companion papers in this issue have detailed the results of a dose reconstruction that has estimated tissue-specific radiation absorbed doses to residents of New Mexico from internal and external exposure to radioactive fallout in the first year following the Trinity test when more than 90% of the lifetime dose was received. Estimated radiation doses depended on geographic location, race/ethnicity, and age at the time of the test. Here, these doses were applied to sex- and organ-specific risk coefficients (without applying a dose and dose rate effectiveness factor to extrapolate from a population with high-dose/high-dose rates to those with low-dose/low-dose rates) and combined with baseline cancer rates and published life tables to estimate and project the range of radiation-related excess cancers among 581,489 potentially exposed residents of New Mexico. The total lifetime baseline number of all solid cancers [excluding thyroid and non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC)] was estimated to be 183,000 from 1945 to 2034. Estimates of ranges of numbers of radiation-related excess cancers and corresponding attributable fractions from 1945 to 2034 incorporate various sources of uncertainty. We estimated 90% uncertainty intervals (UIs) of excess cancer cases to be 210 to 460 for all solid cancers (except thyroid cancer and NMSC), 80 to 530 for thyroid cancer, and up to 10 for leukemia (except chronic lymphocytic leukemia), with corresponding attributable fractions ranging from 0.12% to 0.25%, 3.6% to 20%, and 0.02% to 0.31%, respectively. In the counties of Guadalupe, Lincoln, San Miguel, Socorro, and Torrance, which received the greatest fallout deposition, the 90% UI for the projected fraction of thyroid cancers attributable to radioactive fallout from the Trinity test was estimated to be from 17% to 58%. Attributable fractions for cancer types varied by race/ethnicity, but 90% UIs overlapped for all race/ethnicity groups for each cancer grouping. Thus, most cancers that have occurred or will occur among persons exposed to Trinity fallout are likely to be cancers unrelated to exposures from the Trinity nuclear test. While these ranges are based on the most detailed dose reconstruction to date and rely largely on methods previously established through scientific committee agreement, challenges inherent in the dose estimation, and assumptions relied upon both in the risk projection and incorporation of uncertainty are important limitations in quantifying the range of radiation-related excess cancer risk.

Methods and Findings on Diet and Lifestyle Used to Support Estimation of Radiation Doses from Radioactive Fallout from the Trinity Nuclear Test.

The Trinity nuclear test was detonated in south-central New Mexico on 16 July 1945; in the early 2000s, the National Cancer Institute undertook a dose and cancer risk projection study of the possible health impacts of the test. In order to conduct a comprehensive dose assessment for the Trinity test, we collected diet and lifestyle data relevant to the populations living in New Mexico around the time of the test. This report describes the methodology developed to capture the data used to calculate radiation exposures and presents dietary and lifestyle data results for the main exposure pathways considered in the dose reconstruction. Individual interviews and focus groups were conducted in 2017 among older adults who had lived in the same New Mexico community during the 1940s or 1950s. Interview questions and guided group discussions focused on specific aspects of diet, water, type of housing, and time spent outdoors for different age groups. Thirteen focus groups and 11 individual interviews were conducted among Hispanic, White, and Native American participants. Extensive written notes and audio recordings aided in the coding of all responses used to derive ranges, prevalence, means, and standard deviations for each exposure variable for various age categories by region and ethnicity. Children aged 11-15 y in 1940s or 1950s from the rural plains had the highest milk intakes (993 mL d), and lowest intakes were among 11- to 15-y-olds in mountainous regions (191 mL d). Lactose intolerance rates were 7-71%, and prevalence was highest among Native Americans. Meat was not commonly consumed in the summer in most communities, and if consumed, it was among those aged 11-15 y of age or older who had relatively small amounts of 100-200 g d. Most drinking and cooking water came from covered wells, and most homes were made of adobe, which provided more protection from external radiation than wooden structures. The use of multiple approaches to trigger memory and collect participant reports on diet and other factors from the distant past seemed effective. These data were summarized, and together with other information, these data have been used to estimate radiation doses for representative persons of all ages in the main ethnic groups residing in New Mexico at the time of the Trinity nuclear test.

Estimated Radiation Doses Received by New Mexico Residents from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test

The National Cancer Institute study of projected health risks to New Mexico residents from the 1945 Trinity nuclear test provides best estimates of organ radiation absorbed doses received by representative persons according to ethnicity, age, and county. Doses to five organs/tissues at significant risk from exposure to radioactive fallout (i.e., active bone marrow, thyroid gland, lungs, stomach, and colon) from the 63 most important radionuclides in fresh fallout from external and internal irradiation were estimated. The organ doses were estimated for four resident ethnic groups in New Mexico (Whites, Hispanics, Native Americans, and African Americans) in seven age groups using: (1) assessment models described in a companion paper, (2) data on the spatial distribution and magnitude of radioactive fallout derived from historical documents, and (3) data collected on diets and lifestyles in 1945 from interviews and focus groups conducted in 2015-2017 (described in a companion paper). The organ doses were found to vary widely across the state with the highest doses directly to the northeast of the detonation site and at locations close to the center of the Trinity fallout plume. Spatial heterogeneity of fallout deposition was the largest cause of variation of doses across the state with lesser differences due to age and ethnicity, the latter because of differences in diets and lifestyles. The exposure pathways considered included both external irradiation from deposited fallout and internal irradiation via inhalation of airborne radionuclides in the debris cloud as well as resuspended ground activity and ingestion of contaminated drinking water (derived both from rivers and rainwater cisterns) and foodstuffs including milk products, beef, mutton, and pork, human-consumed plant products including leafy vegetables, fruit vegetables, fruits, and berries. Tables of best estimates of county population-weighted average organ doses by ethnicity and age are presented. A discussion of our estimates of uncertainty is also provided to illustrate a lower and upper credible range on our best estimates of doses. Our findings indicate that only small geographic areas immediately downwind to the northeast received exposures of any significance as judged by their magnitude relative to natural radiation. The findings presented are the most comprehensive and well-described estimates of doses received by populations of New Mexico from the Trinity nuclear test.

Oxidation state of iron in fulgurites and Trinitite: Implications for redox changes during abrupt high-temperature and pressure events

Understanding the geochemical effects of shock metamorphism that occur on planetary surfaces is critical when using potentially shocked planetary samples. Fulgurites, formed by lightning strikes on Earth’s surface, could provide an analog for understanding shock metamorphism, because the intense heat and pressure of impact events are similar to those experienced during lightning strikes. The oxidation state generated during impact is the result of temperature (above 2000 K) and pressure (above 10 GPa) conditions, though the composition and physical nature of the country rock are also important. Atomic explosions such as the Trinity nuclear test and the resulting melted surface material Trinitite can also serve as proxies of shock metamorphism. This study compares samples of fulgurite and Trinitite glasses with the associated country rock using petrography, backscattered electron images, and Mössbauer spectroscopy, with a focus on evaluating redox changes associated with lightning-induced and atomic explosion metamorphism as a function of target material. Two fulgurite melts were also subjected to additional analysis using X-ray absorption spectroscopy to assess potential spatial variations in redox state via in-situ microscale measurements. Results indicate lightning-induced redox variations are heterogeneous at micron scales, although the net effect is overall target reduction with an average reduction of Fe3+ by 66%. Moreover, the data show that the physical state of the country rock (i.e., particulate vs. solid rock) has an effect on the magnitude of how the lightning-induced metamorphism effects are observed.

Potassium isotope fractionation during high-temperature evaporation determined from the Trinity nuclear test

Trinitite materials are the post-detonation glassy residues formed from melting and evaporation of arkosic sands during the first nuclear detonation at the Trinity test site, New Mexico on 16th July, 1945. These trinitites provide useful materials for studying elemental and isotopic behaviors associated with high temperature melting and evaporation that is otherwise difficult to achieve under laboratory conditions. Using a high-precision method, we measured the potassium (K) isotopic compositions of six bulk trinitite samples taken at different distances from the epicenter of detonation of the Gadget (ground zero). 15 leachates and etchates of trinitite samples were also analyzed to examine the distribution of K within the samples. All trinitites but IF_m (taken within 10 m from the epicenter) show no resolvable K loss and span a narrow range in K isotopic compositions (δ41K: −0.42 ± 0.05‰ to −0.48 ± 0.05‰), revealing no discernible K isotopic fractionation from the Bulk Silicate Earth (BSE) value (−0.48 ± 0.03‰). Residues and etchates of the trinitite material are identical in composition to the bulk samples implying that K isotopes were homogeneous within the arkosic sand at the Trinity test site prior to the nuclear detonation. The most strongly melted green trinitite IF_m, is the only trinitite that shows loss of K (~7%) coupled with a resolvable heavier K isotope composition (0.2‰ higher in δ41K than the BSE value). This coupled K loss and isotopic fractionation corresponds to a fractionation factor (αvapor-melt) between 0.995 and 0.998 during the Trinity nuclear detonation. These results confirm that K isotopic fractionation occurs through evaporation processes at high temperatures. We also show that, compared with Zn isotopes measured in the same samples, the isotopes of K were significantly less fractionated during evaporation, indicating that K is less volatile during processes such as magma ocean degassing, volcanic outgassing, and impact volatile loss. Our findings support the concept that the heavy K isotopic composition observed in lunar mare basalts reflects the primary signature imprinted by the Moon-forming giant impact event.

A synchrotron X-ray spectroscopy study of titanium co-ordination in explosive melt glass derived from the trinity nuclear test.

The speciation of Ti in trinitite, the explosive melt glass derived from the Trinity Test of 16th of July 1945, was investigated by X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). Ti K-edge XANES showed that Ti was present in the Ti(iv) oxidation state for all samples. Fitting of pre-edge features by Gaussian functions and comparison with standards of known Ti coordination revealed significant variation in Ti coordination environment between samples. The variation of Ti coordination may be attributed to several factors including specific local chemistry and thermal histories of samples, in keeping with the highly heterogeneous microstructure of trinitite and the arkosic sand source material.

Cinema's Hot Chronology (5:29:21 Mountain War Time, July 16, 1945)

Cinema's Hot Chronology (5:29:21 Mountain War Time, July 16, 1945) Jennifer Fay (bio) In the history of film and media there are banner periods in which technology, aesthetics, and politics collide in especially striking ways. In the US context, we could rattle off years (e.g., 1896, 1927, 1946) that exemplify what James Chandler, borrowing from Claude Lévi-Strauss, calls "hot chronologies," dates that are overrepresented in historical accounts relative to both their duration and as compared with other periods that are "less eventful." The "thermometric metaphor," explains Chandler, has nothing to do with actual temperatures. In Lévi-Strauss's anthropology, hot chronologies emerge out of advanced "hot societies," those "in which time may be said to count and be counted" in the annals of world history. This is in contrast to "primitive" cultures, which are so seemingly invariable or "cold" that they "lack internal temperature deviations" and therefore appear to have an "internal environment" resistant to periodization and therefore to elucidation by history.1 [End Page 146] This essay focuses on a hot chronology of a different and perhaps more literal order that takes stock of rising temperatures and radioactive fallout and also connects a hot chronology to the first-world hot society most responsible for global warming. Yet this chronology encapsulates utterly incommensurable scales of time and space, so vast and so small that it should fall outside of what "counts" as history altogether. It also enfolds film, a particular film that hardly registers as significant in the histories of film, into an expansive geological past and an apocalyptic end of human innovation. What are cinema's hot chronologies in the Anthropocene epoch? How can we "do" film and media history against the deep time of a geological record and planetary future that far exceed humanity, much less cinema? I propose one such chronology here and consider the reading practices and aesthetic attunements that this instant summons forth. Two Epochs, One Instant The time stamp 5:29:21 Mountain War Time, July 16, 1945, is etched in both historical memory and the planet's geological record as the precise beginning of two different epochs: the nuclear and the Anthropocene, each producing a new kind of human, a different kind of world, and a peculiar relationship of humankind to both history and the future. At this moment exactly, the American military and scientific establishment detonated the most powerful weapon the world had known. The Trinity nuclear test marked the onset of a new, soon-to-be-global paradigm in which weapons of mass destruction were a reality of twentieth-century life. German-Jewish philosopher and antinuclear activist Günther Anders summed up the meaning of Trinity in 1956 when he remarked that the test had given rise to a new ontology of the human as "cosmic parvenus . . . usurpers of apocalypse," who had now replaced the godly power of "creatio ex nihilo" with its demonic other, "potestas annhiliationis" or "reductio ad nihil."2 The concentration camps, he explained, expanded the truism that "all men are mortal" into a new lethal proposition: "All men are exterminable." But nuclear weapons initiated "a new historical epoch" with an even more expansive caption: "Mankind as a whole is exterminable."3 Previous wars had destroyed "'merely' people, cities, empires or cultures," but humanity in some form always survived.4 Now humanity and everything that grants the species immortality, its history and archives, was subject to immediate and remainderless erasure. Like many midcentury philosophers, Anders envisions a future thermonuclear war so devastating that it erases time altogether, catapulting our dead planet into a cosmic no-man's-land and inhuman temporality. "All history [before Trinity] is now reduced to prehistory." In this, "the Last Age" ("even if it should last forever"), human existence is summed up in the paradox of "not yet being non-existing." Trinity marks the beginning of "the possibility of self-extinction" that "can never end, but by the end itself."5 In 2015 the Anthropocene Working Group of the International Commission on Stratigraphy returned to the Trinity time stamp as the start date for the Great Acceleration and thus also the proposed Anthropocene epoch. The fallout from...

Dr. Atomic by John Adams and Peter Sellars

Reviewed by: Dr. Atomicby John Adams and Peter Sellars Andrew Martinez Dr. Atomic. By John Adams and Peter Sellars. Choreographed by Emily Johnson. Santa Fe Opera, New Mexico. 07 14, 2018. The work of Dr. Atomicbegan the moment I exited the Hertz rental-car parking lot at Albuquerque International Sunport. The sunny, one-hour drive to Santa Fe along the Turquoise Trail was interrupted by short, intermittent showers. It was a markedly wet summer in Santa Fe, but the rain did not diminish the magnificence of New Mexico's terrain. The endless stretch of blue horizon, the terra-cotta mesas, and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains—all assembled at 7,000 feet above sea level—appropriately functioned as an immersive backdrop for Santa Fe Opera's (SFO) production of Dr. Atomicand the reparative community work it set out to address for the Indigenous and marginalized populations who live near the Trinity nuclear test site. The 2018 production of Dr. Atomicportended new approaches to achieving justice and parity in its form as a period drama and as a prolepsis of the current moment. The SFO's premiere of Dr. Atomicwas as much a house cleaning as it was a homecoming. Certainly, the significance of the New Mexico–specific opera coming to Santa Fe was expertly anticipated and celebrated by the company's marketing department, but the event also became an opportunity to confront the histories and present-day experiences of pain and suffering that New Mexico citizens have endured since that rainy summer night in July 1945 when the first atomic bomb was detonated. Through meaningful collaborations with local and Indigenous communities, the SFO's production of Dr. Atomicdeparted from its 2005 San Francisco Opera iteration as a period opera and became a more contemporary rendering of nuclear power and its threat to humanity. A 2,400-pound silver orb was the only set piece, suspended in a way that eclipsed the open-air view of the Santa Fe landscape beyond the stage. This particular view had a clear line of sight out to the Los Alamos laboratory where the 1945 bomb was developed and where nuclear weapons continue to be designed today. The cast of the production was joined by people from the Tesuque, San Ildefonso, and Santa Clara pueblos, as well as the folks known as "the downwinders," who live near the bomb's test sites and suffer from extreme cancers and other related health concerns due to exposure to radiation fallout. Dr. Atomicinitiated the first partnership between the SFO and the pueblo communities. A new inter-tribe corn dance was created expressly for the production and functioned alongside the John Adams score and Peter Sellars libretto as a coeval text. The summer dance, usually reserved for the pueblos, featured fourteen adults and children accompanied by five male musicians playing percussion instruments. The ritual demonstration was presented a half hour before the opera began. The dance was then reprised in the second act at the part of the story when it is decided that, due to national security, there would not be an evacuation of the surrounding areas and people. In this scene, dancers and downwinders held vigil and stared out into the audience as irrevocable decisions were made about their fate. Additionally, choreographer Emily John-son, of Yup'ik descent, layered movement danced by four Indigenous artists amid Sellars's staging. Their movement trajectories were like atoms, coming together and splitting apart, around and through the scientists and military personnel. Additional programming for Dr. Atomicincluded pre-show conversations with downwinders and pueblo community members and provided rich testimony about life and the land decades after the atomic bomb was detonated at Trinity. Speakers from the Tularosa Basin Downwinders shared their current decades-long plight to lobby for recognition, reparations, and healthcare resources from the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which was passed in 1990. On another part of the SFO property, activists from the A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition interrupted the traditional "tailgate" picnic in the parking lot to protest Dr. Atomic. This was in response to the Trump administration's 2018 Nuclear Posture Review directive for the Los...

Direct Pb Isotopic Analysis of a Nuclear Fallout Debris Particle from the Trinity Nuclear Test.

The Pb isotope composition of a nuclear fallout debris particle has been directly measured in post-detonation materials produced during the Trinity nuclear test by a secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) scanning ion image technique (SII). This technique permits the visual assessment of the spatial distribution of Pb and can be used to obtain full Pb isotope compositions in user-defined regions in a 70 μm × 70 μm analytical window. In conjunction with backscattered electron (BSE) and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) mapping of the same particle, the Pb measured in this fallout particle cannot be from a major phase in the precursor arkosic sand. Similarly, the Pb isotope composition of the particle is resolvable from the surrounding glass at the 2σ uncertainty level (where σ represents the standard deviation). The Pb isotope composition measured in the particle here is in excellent agreement with that inferred from measurements of green and red trinitite, suggesting that these types of particles are responsible for the Pb isotope compositions measured in both trinitite glasses.

A geochemical approach to constraining the formation of glassy fallout debris from nuclear tests

Glassy nuclear fallout debris from near-surface nuclear tests is fundamentally reprocessed earth material. A geochemical approach to analysis of glassy fallout is uniquely suited to determine the means of reprocessing and shed light on the mechanisms of fallout formation. An improved understanding of fallout formation is of interest both for its potential to guide post-detonation nuclear forensic investigations and in the context of possible affinities between glassy debris and other glasses generated by high-energy natural events, such as meteorite impacts and lightning strikes. This study presents a large major-element compositional dataset for glasses within aerodynamic fallout from the Trinity nuclear test (“trinitite”) and a geochemically based analysis of the glass compositional trends. Silica-rich and alkali-rich trinitite glasses show compositions and textures consistent with formation through melting of individual mineral grains—quartz and alkali feldspar, respectively—from the test-site sediment. The volumetrically dominant glass phase—called the CaMgFe glass—shows extreme major-element compositional variability. Compositional trends in the CaMgFe glass are most consistent with formation through volatility-controlled condensation from compositionally heterogeneous plasma. Radioactivity occurs only in CaMgFe glass, indicating that co-condensation of evaporated bulk ground material and trace device material was the main mechanism of radioisotope incorporation into trinitite. CaMgFe trinitite glasses overlap compositionally with basalts, rhyolites, fulgurites, tektites, and microtektites but display greater compositional diversity than all of these naturally formed glasses. Indeed, the most refractory CaMgFe glasses compositionally resemble early solar system condensates—specifically, CAIs.

Measurements of extinct fission products in nuclear bomb debris: Determination of the yield of the Trinity nuclear test 70 y later

This paper describes an approach to measuring extinct fission products that would allow for the characterization of a nuclear test at any time. The isotopic composition of molybdenum in five samples of glassy debris from the 1945 Trinity nuclear test has been measured. Nonnatural molybdenum isotopic compositions were observed, reflecting an input from the decay of the short-lived fission products (95)Zr and (97)Zr. By measuring both the perturbation of the (95)Mo/(96)Mo and (97)Mo/(96)Mo isotopic ratios and the total amount of molybdenum in the Trinity nuclear debris samples, it is possible to calculate the original concentrations of the (95)Zr and (97)Zr isotopes formed in the nuclear detonation. Together with a determination of the amount of plutonium in the debris, these measurements of extinct fission products allow for new estimates of the efficiency and yield of the historic Trinity test.

The Anthropocene as a History of Technology: Welcome to the Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands , Deutsches Museum, Munich

The Anthropocene as a History of TechnologyWelcome to the Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands, Deutsches Museum, Munich Finn Arne Jørgensen (bio) and Dolly Jørgensen (bio) Willkommen im Anthropozän—Welcome to the Anthropocene. This message greets the visitor to this Deutsches Museum special exhibit that opened on 5 December 2014. The Anthropocene is one of the prominent concepts of our time, positing an Age of Humans during which Earth has been irrevocably changed by human ways of consuming and modifying the environment. The term “Anthropocene” was popularized by Paul Crutzen, a Dutch Nobel laureate in chemistry. The freshwater biologist Eugene Stoermer (1934–2012) had used the term “Anthropocene” since the early 1980s, and together they wrote an article in 2000. Crutzen and Stoermer argued that there is something going on with the planet that calls for a new terminology—the current geological epoch, the Holocene, was no longer sufficient. They saw the realization of this new epoch as a call for the “research and engineering community” to “guide mankind towards global, sustainable, environmental management.”1 Although Crutzen and Stoermer situated the Anthropocene as a geological epoch—something visible in the geological record of the planet—the Anthropocene is often invoked when discussing climate change and other environmental modifications.2 An International Union of Geological Sciences special working group is currently determining if there is sufficient scientific evidence to establish an official new geologic epoch. It is a hotly contested thesis, however, raising concerns about not only the dating of geological time periods but also about the politics and power structures [End Page 231] in the world today. Whose responsibility is the environmental state of the planet? The causes and consequences of the Anthropocene are not evenly distributed. Technology is the linchpin in the Anthropocene as an idea. Crutzen argued that James Watt’s design of the steam engine can be seen as the beginning of the Anthropocene—in other words, making it a story of the Industrial Revolution.3 A more recent attempt at dating the Anthropocene places the starting point at the dawn of the nuclear age, making the Trinity nuclear test explosion on 16 July 1945 a historical turning point.4 Still others trace the Anthropocene back to the beginnings of agriculture as a fundamentally technological way of interacting with and modifying nature.5 The Welcome to the Anthropocene exhibit is one of the most extensive attempts to date to bring the history of science and technology in dialogue with the Anthropocene thesis. The Deutsches Museum is a venerable institution in the field of history of technology and is well placed for such an intervention in the debate over the Anthropocene. The museum is one of the founding partners of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, together with Ludwig-Maximilian University. There was considerable cross-fertilization of ideas between the two institutions when developing the exhibition, as is evidenced in the exhibit catalog and essays. The exhibit reflects the pervasiveness of the Anthropocene in all aspects of life. It is a relatively compact exhibit, covering 1,400 square meters, yet it manages to encompass a wide range of topics in its six thematic “islands”: Urbanization, Mobility, Humans and Machines, Nature, Food, and Evolution. This selection works fairly well, though there are topics not covered by the islands, including the obvious Anthropocene elephant in the room, climate change. The island “Nature” is somewhat problematic because in naming it so, there is a claim being made that the other islands are, perhaps, not nature. Yet as both environmental historians and historians of technology, we see nature and technology intertwined in all the islands. In addition to the physical exhibit, there is a companion website, a virtual exhibition as part of the Environment & Society Portal, a comic book, and a catalog with essays in both German and English.6 Some objects on permanent display in the museum have been virtually linked to the exhibit through thirty eight-panel comic strips with accompanying mini-essays rather than moved into the temporary space. The exhibit physically closes on 31 January 2016, but it will live on in digital form. As visitors first enter the exhibit hall, they...

Distribution and behavior of some radionuclides associated with the Trinity nuclear test

The activities of 133Ba, 137Cs, 152Eu, 154Eu, 155Eu, 239Pu, and 241Am were determined by gamma spectroscopy on the largest sample set (n = 49) of bulk trinitite to date. The range in activity for all isotopes is large. For example, the activity of 241Am (normalized to the time of detonation) ranges between 1 and 42 Bq/g. Comparison of activities for isotopes derived from the device, 241Am versus 137Cs, 155Eu, and 239Pu, indicate positive trends. Correlations were not observed between the activities of the soil-derived activation products 152Eu and 154Eu and the radioisotopes from the device. The calculated ratio of fission products (155Eu/137Cs) is 0.012 ± .006 (1σ, n = 3), which is lower than predicted for the thermal neutron-induced fission of 239Pu (~0.03). This discrepancy may be attributed to the spontaneous fission of the natural U tamper resulting in mixing between fission products from 239Pu and 235U. The spatial distribution of the trinitite samples relative to ground zero has been modeled based on the activity of 152Eu. The calculated distances do not correlate with any of the activities for the radioisotopes investigated here, and suggest a relatively homogeneous distribution. However, trinitite samples with the highest activities for 137Cs, 239Pu, and 241Am yield the shortest calculated distances of 50–60 m away from ground zero.